Jezebel's Blues

the long version

When the Jezebel River overflows her banks and tries to swallow the small town of Gideon in East Texas, Celia Moon is alone and frightened in the farmhouse she inherited from her grandmother. When a mesmerizing and troubled drifter washes up on her porch, she has no choice but to take him in. As the river rises, the pair retreat to the attic to ride out the storm—and discover a compelling attraction. The daughter of two artists who were besotted with each other, Celia has always felt the odd woman out. She yearns to find a place she can call her own, a family of her own, and a life that has some stability and meaning. Her grandmother’s farmhouse in Gideon has always represented that. Eric fled his grim childhood in Gideon to find a life as an acclaimed blues guitarist, but that life has been taken from him, too, and he’s back in Gideon with a chip on his shoulder that hides the vast hunger he, too, feels to find his place, his home, his life. Waiting out the storm with sunny, optimistic Celia, he wonders if maybe there’s a place in Gideon for him after all, in the arms of a woman who might know more than she thinks about acceptance. A novel as rich and deep as a river, Jezebel’s Blues is both a haunting love story and a tale of finding your way to accepting yourself.